Good call on the Arco gear reduction starter upgrade. Put one on mine earlier this year, you'll love it.

Nice work on the buffing/polishing. Replacing at least the 1/4" blue striping would be a good bang for the buck in the looks dept. Pretty easy to do and not that costly, but you may be busy doing some other stuff this weekend!

Underway now trying to get everything back together, actually running into a lot of headaches trying to drill out the heads.. I'm literally eating up stepper drill bits before they get through 1 hole!! I bought a titanium from sears that works but can't fit in my drill extension so I then went to home depot and got a junk one that didn't last 1 hole, then went to harbor freight and found some titanium plated that also didn't last 1 hole each..
Put some questions out in the engine forum, hopefully can get some clarification soon. Off to the ford dealership now to get an oil filter adaptor fitting as the old one was seized into the old block and off to hunt down a stepper drill bit that will finish off the last 8 holes that need to be drilled out...

yeah this definitely needs to be done by a shop, or with a strong drill press at a minimum. When I replaced my heads I had them drilled out by a shop. I did just buy a nice used drill press for drilling steel. Makes a HUGE difference. I used to struggle drilling out 1/4" steel by hand with even good bits, but with the drill press drilling through steel is like drilling through wood.
Good luck,
Kevin

Overall things went pretty smooth and I only ended up with a couple extra bolts!

Unfortunately she hasn't run yet.. After cranking and cranking for a while with nothing I decided to pour a little gas down the carb and sure enough she fired right away so after looking things over I'm fairly certain the fuel pump is dead.. I'm guessing 5yrs of sitting bone dry didn't help it out much) Ordered a new one from skidim today and will have it in a couple days then I'll be pullin her back to the shop for a final once over and timing.. hopefully everything with the tranny's good, I pulled a couple qts of the old fluid out today (was expecting more than that) and replaced with new fluid..

Underway now trying to get everything back together, actually running into a lot of headaches trying to drill out the heads.. I'm literally eating up stepper drill bits before they get through 1 hole!! I bought a titanium from sears that works but can't fit in my drill extension so I then went to home depot and got a junk one that didn't last 1 hole, then went to harbor freight and found some titanium plated that also didn't last 1 hole each.

You're obviously past the drilling out the heads point, but man, I'd never even attempt one hole in cast iron, much less both heads worth. Mine were done by a machine shop and I still had a time getting the bolts all started by hand. Seemed like the last one just wouldn't start, even though visually it looked perfectly aligned. Did you end up drilling them all out or did you surrender to a machine shop?

Didn't see it mentioned in the thread how/where heads were acquired, but the 'freeze' plugs on the ends of the heads did get replaced with brass ones, right? I'd defer to some of the 'engine nuts' as to whether the threaded plugs (in photo between the valve springs) should be brass or not, although the original ones on my heads were.

You're obviously past the drilling out the heads point, but man, I'd never even attempt one hole in cast iron, much less both heads worth. Mine were done by a machine shop and I still had a time getting the bolts all started by hand. Seemed like the last one just wouldn't start, even though visually it looked perfectly aligned. Did you end up drilling them all out or did you surrender to a machine shop?

It was terrible and in hind sight made no sense to tackle on my own.. Forget about the time and frustration but after 6 hours and 4 trips to different stores to buy more bits, I probably spent double what a shop would've charged.. They're done now at least and so far all looks good..

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeyOrange88

Didn't see it mentioned in the thread how/where heads were acquired, but the 'freeze' plugs on the ends of the heads did get replaced with brass ones, right? I'd defer to some of the 'engine nuts' as to whether the threaded plugs (in photo between the valve springs) should be brass or not, although the original ones on my heads were.

I got the heads locally off craigslist freshly rebuilt.. Changing the plugs out is on my ever-growing list of to-dos for this fall/winter when I'm not so rushed..

So the boat's been dropped off for final odds and ends and timing.. Does anyone with similar mods have a recommendation what the timing should be set at?? (Feeling like I need to be as prescriptive as possible to the shop that's working on it..)